| Release Date: | 060526 |
| Currently: | Out of stock... OR coming soon - Check That Release Date one line up! (MM/DD/YY) |
| Please note: | Want one of these? Please e-mail us, with "Request to Order" in the subject line,, at [email protected] and we will get back to you with availability & current pricing |
June 5th 2026
Standard CD
This collection honours not only the extraordinary versatility of Waits and Brennan's songwriting, but the importance of an artist who continues to haunt and inspire from the edges inward. Ace's selection is sequenced chronologically by song, opening with Bruce Springsteen's live recording of 'Jersey Girl', Waits' ode to Brennan from 1980's Heartattack And Vine, and closing with folk matriarch Joan Baez's version of Waits and Brennan's anti-war 'Day After Tomorrow' from Waits' more recent Real Gone. "All the great things that came out of New Jersey don't hold a candle to Kathleen Brennan, at least not in Tom's eyes," Bob Dylan said on his Theme Time Radio Hour show. "She rescued me," reflected Waits in an interview for The Guardian. "Maybe I rescued her too, that's often how it works. Upshot is that we both got into the same leaky boat. Everybody knows she's the brains behind Pa, as Dylan might have said. I'm just the figurehead. She's the one who's steering the ship." In addition to "steering the ship", Brennan became Waits' songwriting partner. The couple's first-released joint composition, 'Hang Down Your Head' from Rain Dogs, is heard here in a raunchy rendition by country-blues heroine Lucinda Williams. Elsewhere, performers from the worlds of jazz, blues, gospel, soul and rock put their own stamps on great songs with which Waits devotees will be familiar on Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs, Franks Wild Years, Big Time, Bone Machine, Mule Variations, Real Gone and Orphans. Pride of place - because it's a particular favourite of Waits and proved incredibly challenging to license - goes to the heart-wrenching recording of 'Down There By The Train' from Johnny Cash's late-life masterpiece American Recordings.
Track list: